Farage Slams ‘Draconian’ Lockdown Laws Which He Claims Won’t Be Respected by BLM Protesters

People hold up placards as they take part in the inaugural Million People March march from
JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP via Getty Images

Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage has slammed the government’s new “draconian” lockdown laws, saying that it is hard to justify law-abiding citizens following the new rules when police fail to stop protests and illegal raves.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced on Wednesday a ban on public and private get-togethers of more than six people in England after a rise in the number of coronavirus cases. The government is also reportedly considering a nationwide curfew.

In response to the reports, Mr Farage said: “This draconian law that comes in from Monday to allow gatherings of only 6 people will not be respected by protestors and those going to raves, so why should the rest of us comply?”

Under the new rules, police with be endowed with the power to fine people £100, doubling for subsequence offences to a maximum of £3,200.

Mr Farage may be right to point out the hypocrisy of threatening to police free, law-abiding Britons after months of authorities failing to crack down on far-left Antifa and Marxist Black Lives Matter protests, so-called ‘street parties’, and illegal raves.

The double standards were evident in the treatment of two protests in the last weekend of May, where on the Saturday, London’s Metropolitan Police Service arrested peaceful, anti-lockdown protesters at Speakers’ Corner — a site hallowed in British free speech advocacy. On the Sunday, Antifa and BLM protesters flooded the city, with little intervention from the police.

Despite several weekends of violent and destructive Black Lives Matter protests, the police admitted that the events were “unlawful” under coronavirus regulations, but effectively did nothing — because they feared massive civil unrest.

In the first week of June, the Met’s Commissioner Cressida Dick admitted: “Judgments, have been made, that people are out in such numbers, feeling so strongly, and are refusing to disperse when asked, that the officers have formed the view that if they were to try at that stage, with those sorts of numbers, to enforce en masse, we probably would have ended up with very serious disorder and a bad situation, a difficult situation, a challenging situation for everybody, turning into a violent situation.”

Home Secretary Priti Patel warned at the end of June that the mass gatherings could lead to a spike in cases and “another wave” — the alleged impending ‘second wave’ that ordinary Britons are set to pay for from next week.

In late August, the government approved measures that would see those who organise mass illegal gatherings be handed a £10,000 fine. However, police were forced to drop an investigation into ‘community activist’ Ken Hinds on August 28th for his part in organising the BLM-associated Million People March, because as a political protest, according to The Guardian, the far-left demonstration was exempt.

The Million People March went ahead on the 30th, while on the same day Piers Corbyn, the brother of former Labour leader Jeremy, was fined £10,000 for organising an anti-lockdown demonstration.

Meanwhile, police across the country have struggled to stop illegal “quarantine raves”, where there have been reports of stabbings, killings, and rape. In London in particular, the Met has been attacked while trying to disperse what the mainstream media referred to as “street parties” in parts of the capital’s neighbourhoods.

At the other end of the spectrum, ordinary Britons have found themselves harassed by police over walking their dogs or selling Easter eggs.

In March, Derbyshire Police poured black dye into a lagoon at a beauty spot to discourage swimmers, after having deployed drones in the Peak District to scold dog walkers and order them home.

Warrington Police even boasted that it had fined “multiple people from the same household going to the shops for non-essential items” and fined another who went “out for a drive due to boredom”. Some small shop owners had complained of being harassed by police for selling Easter eggs because they were “non-essential”.

In one bizarre instance, police asked members of the public in April to contact them if they saw a man dressed as the plague doctor in Norfolk. They said they wanted to provide him with “words of advice” — despite admitting that no crime had been committed, lockdown-related or otherwise.

So questionable were the fines laid out, that on May 4th, the Crown Prosecution Service ordered a review of all criminal coronavirus cases. Despite the order from the CPS and lockdown restrictions having been lifted, the police have still reacted in an extreme fashion to the most ordinary aspects of British life, last month issuing fines because three families had got together to celebrate a child’s birthday.

However, Mr Johnson’s new rules could see the resumption of ordinary Britons being fined for visiting families or even being out after curfew. If recent polling by YouGov is to be believed, the vast majority of Britons remain in fear of the virus.

Businessman and peer Lord Alan Sugar condemned the mainstream media on Tuesday for perpetuating a culture of fear surrounding the pandemic, which is stopping people from returning to work, adding: We’ve got to get back to some form of normality.”

In April, Farage warned of the coronavirus “police state” with Britons expected to live under a “house detention regime”, writing: “I fear, however, that the arbitrary powers now given to the police may remain in place for a long time to come.”

“I can envisage the argument being advanced by the police that many of their powers must be retained in case another pandemic strikes,” he predicted.

Former Supreme Court judge Lord Sumption had remarked in March that the way the police and government were treating coronavirus regulations was akin to a “police state”.

“This is what a police state is like — it is a state in which the government can issue orders or express preferences with no legal authority, and the police enforce minister’s wishes,” he said.

COMMENTS

Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.